Stealing Mom

Those Summer Days Have Come and Gone

2011-10-06T12:13:00.000-07:00

Turn on your sound, go to the bottom of the page, click the arrow in the Player and listen to an oldie but a goodie: Hair and Kookie!Kookie Lend Me Your Comb

Autumn has arrived and slowly the signs of the end of summer are beginning to show. It’s getting dark earlier, kids are in their houses doing homework instead of riding bikes, and school buses are on the roads in the early hours of morning. This year, following an increasing trend, there is a mix of Halloween costumes, decorations, and treats mixed in with the ever bigger selection of Christmas decorations and holiday shopping enticements. I’m conflicted about this because I like time for each holiday by itself. First I want to enjoy Halloween, then Thanksgiving, and finally, devote lots of time and attention to Christmas. I like the quickness of Halloween – it’s really just a few days of candy and costumes – then I want time to forget the Thanksgiving turkey before the Christmas one hits the oven. Halloween seems like an autumn rite to me, and Thanksgiving the official start of the holiday season. I love the holiday rush and I’m not able to enjoy them as much when they are all jammed together. I don’t want to see a kid out on beggar’s night dressed like a ghost, carrying a pillow sack for collecting candy, holding a candied apple in one hand while walking in front of a display of the Christmas Manger. For me, Halloween is an autumn holiday with pumpkins, candy corn, apple cider, ghouls, ghosts, princesses, witches and all of that stuff.

But Fall is on the way, the leaves are beginning to change, and everything looks beautiful with the red, gold and orange colors. But about those leaves — they are falling all over the yard, sticking to the bottom of our shoes, coming into the house and bringing bugs in with them. Autumn is not something I’m ready for just yet. I want sun, warm weather, green leaves on the trees, blooming flowers, chirping birds, hiding stink bugs. Actually, dead stink bugs would be preferable.

I have a sure fire plan to stave off autumn for a few weeks which always works; it’s tried and true and I’ve perfected the process. As soon as I switch the summer stuff out for the winter stuff in my closets and drawers we will have a beautiful Indian Summer. If I throw in washing the windows we’ll get an excess of rain so I’m going to let that one go.

Unfortunately, I know it’s time for a little bit of autumn cleaning all over the house, including all the drawers and closets as I switch the clothes, and since it’s been too rainy and cool most days to do much else, I got to work. I thought it should be pretty easy because I’m an organized person. I’m also not a saver and I’m not good with drawers or closets that are overstuffed. My theory is that if something isn’t worn or used for 2 or 3 years it is unlikely to be worn or used again so those things get donated if they are in good condition and thrown out if they aren’t. New stuff would look better in its place and I love to shop. Scott claims that many years ago I sold his favorite winter jacket, a camel colored car coat, in a garage sale for $3 but I think I got $5 and I don’t believe it was his favorite jacket. I did, however, appreciate the additional space in the coat closet.

My first task would be simple: bring out the sweaters, put away the bathing suits. Exhausted after this task I picked up a book, read a paragraph or two, and took a nap. The next day I tackled the storage shelves in the laundry room and the drawers in the bathroom vanity.

In the laundry room I found 27 Velcro hair curlers, 6 curling irons, 12 hair barrettes, 8 plastic hair bands, 10 decorative hair combs, 2 clip-on hair bows, 17 long silver hair clips, 4 packages of unopened bobby pins, and a large bag of about 50 permanent wave curlers. I also found 4 bathroom rugs that I’d saved in spite of them being worn out and not matching anything in the bathrooms, a big tabletop clock that has a company logo on it, no batteries, and is, quite frankly, indescribably ugly, a wealth of felt covered, wire, and pant/skirt hangers, five plug-in chargers for various things that we no longer know what or where they are, 5 flashlights and a couple lanterns in case the power goes out and we can remember where the batteries are kept, touch-up paint for the front door we had five years ago, and all the beach towels I couldn’t find this past summer.

The bathroom vanities yielded rusted cans of hair mousse and hairspray, an unopened jar of hair freezing paste, 4 combs in varying colors and sizes still in the original packaging that I swear I never saw before, 3 round hair brushes that appear to be exactly the same and not any different than the one I currently use, and a gigantic flat iron. There was also all the newer stuff we use now or believe we will use soon, someday, probably, or possibly.

You may be drawing a couple of conclusions here: that I am not as organized as I have claimed, and that I am more of a saver than I have implied.

You could also get the impression that I am a hair stylist. I am not, and most of these items have never been used. I have only used a couple of the curling irons, no more than 8 of the Velcro curlers, and few long silver hair clips. I bought the rest in case I might need them someday.

We did use the permanent wave curlers back in the 70’s when Scott decided that growing his hair out and wearing a perm would be appropriate for the Disco Era especially if he wore his leisure suit. One would have thought that he’d know better than to let me give him a perm, inviting a friend to assist no less, after his initial Hair Style by Lynne back in the late 60’s. He needed a trim and I told him I could do it and went to work. In fairness, he did question the final look but I assured him that he looked great. The following day his co-workers asked if he was preparing for life as a cloistered Monk. They also asked if the bowl used atop his head as a pattern for the haircut had been destroyed as they would not want to visit and be served food from the same. They remained strangely quiet about the perm. He eventually went to a hair salon for his haircuts and perms once he realized that my hair styling license was imaginary.

Malana gives Scott a Permanent Wave………..

He’s Got the Look………….

So far I’ve brought out the sweaters, put away the bathing suits, finally found the beach towels I needed when the weather was hot and I was able to go swimming, pined for my days as a hair stylist and faced the reality that all the hair accruements I found wouldn’t help me with that. I organized all the other things on the laundry room storage shelves, keeping most of them whether we need them or not, know what they are or don’t.

I’ve even organized my socks by color in my sock drawer. I was ready to pack away my summer flip-flops but hesitated because they are so cute and comfortable. Denise decorated a pair for me with feather boa threads and they are just too cute to ever be put away so I’m leaving the boots and leggings packed away for a while longer.

This coming week it’s going to be sunny and in the high 70’s or low 80’s so my tried and true process has worked. Scott is still golfing so he is in a really good mood. He even went for a haircut at the salon and his hair looks great. I do think it’s the kind of haircut I could give him here at home. All I need is some hair clippers.

The Earth Moved Under My Seat

2011-08-26T19:10:00.000-07:00

Add to your enjoyment by scrolling down to the bottom of your screen and pressing the arrow in the middle of the black player if the music doesn't automatically start to hear I Feel the Earth Move by Carole King and All Shook Up by Elvis Presley. Make sure your sound is on!

It’s been one of those weeks.

We were babysitting the youngest grandkids, Guilia and Luca, this past weekend. They are usually able to keep themselves busy, are well behaved, get along most of the time, and are always very entertaining. It was a rainy day so we decided to take them to the Mall, have some lunch, and go to the grocery store. The Mall has a play area, a Merry-Go-Round, and some cars that rock if you put in a bunch of quarters. There is enough to keep them busy, moving, and get them somewhat de-energized. The plan was to wear them out by the time we got home since their parents, stuck in different airports because of the weather, wouldn’t be home until the next day. We wanted them to have fun and then get a good night’s sleep so Scott and I could get a good night’s sleep. This is the same plan we utilized with Aidan and Riley when they were very little and it always worked.

I combed their hair, washed their faces, and made sure they had on clean clothes. Scott put Luca into his car seat, and I checked that Guilia was securely fastened in her booster. The first problem was discovered in the Mall parking lot upon our arrival as we were getting the kids out of their car seats. Guilia, who had arrived at our house with a suitcase holding at least 4 pair of shoes, did not have any shoes with her. I’d checked them both before we left the house and I swear she had shoes on. It was obviously an illusion. She assured us that it was ok; she didn’t really need any shoes. We decided the easiest solution was to go buy a cheap pair of flip flops so she could get into the food court which, just like all eating establishments, has a policy of no shirt, no shoes, no service.

As we were getting the kids back into their car seats to go to Wal-Mart for shoes a bee flew in the window. Scott and I, acting and sounding like people who needed to be put in white, locking, restraining jackets, moved to a windowless room with padded walls in a big white building somewhere out in the remote countryside, finally trapped and smothered the bee with a tissue, but not before it stung my finger, only adding to the whole atmosphere of hysteria. The kids misunderstood, thought we were entertaining them, and laughed at us as though a couple of clowns had come to the Mall parking lot just to entertain them. Finally, sanity seemed within our reach.

Lunch went smoothly because of the allure of the Merry-Go-Round which we told them only went around, up and down, and played music if children ate a good lunch. As we were working our way to the play area, Guilia realized that she needed some lipstick. I, a reasonably intelligent and sane person most of the time, took her to Simone at the Estee Lauder counter at Macy’s and bought the 4 year old a $21 tube of lipstick. We then left the bag with the lipstick on the seat of one of the rocking cars that had swallowed up all our quarters, leaving us with no quarters and no lipstick.

Guilia has a dead cell phone she plays with. She puts it up to her ear and talks for long periods of time to some imaginary friend. Sometimes Luca gets to talk on the dead cell phone, but it’s a real contest and the one thing they always fight over. She began to talk on the phone as we drove home, and Luca was becoming extremely impatient and upset because he needed to make an important call. Guilia was not going to part with the phone under any circumstances. Things got very heated and the argument was causing Luca to cry. Scott and I begged Guilia to give her brother a turn with the dead cell phone. Guilia lifted herself up in her booster car seat, put the dead cell phone under her little butt, and said to Luca, “You can’t have it. The phone is charging.”

Scott and I had no idea phones could be charged this way, and I’m betting it’s news to you, too. We’ve always used a plug-in charger for our cell phones.

On Tuesday, sitting in the sun at the pool with the girls, I suddenly felt a little shaky. My water bottle started shaking and it seemed like the earth was moving ever so slightly. Was I getting sick? My friend Patty also looked startled and shaky. The other girls didn’t seem to notice anything and so we both said, rather loudly, “DID YOU FEEL THAT?” Then, not wanting to alarm anyone, we both quietly said that we felt something weird —like things were shaking and quivering. Maybe groundhogs had a tunnel underground and were running through it, having groundhog sex, or giving birth to baby groundhogs, shaking up the ground underneath us. The other girls thought we were joking.

In fact, the earth had moved. Soon the news was out that there had been a 5.8 magnitude earthquake in central Virginia that had rattled the whole upper east coast. Earthquakes are destructive and terrifying. But this was not an earthquake like the ones people in Haiti or Japan experienced. Those were extremely serious, damaging, massively devastating events causing loss of lives and traumatic injury to thousands of people.

But still, this earthquake merited quite a bit of news coverage. Here in the Pittsburgh area we saw the photographs people took of the effects of the quake they’d experienced: a lawn chair turned on its side, a wall picture hanging askew, lipstick missing a woman’s mouth and ending up on her nose, golf games being disrupted, plants falling over. People told horror tales of spilling their beer and feeling dizzy. Well, that could have been because of too much beer, not the earthquake.

The line of the earthquake must have travelled in a straight line directly from me to Patty who was sitting right across from me. We were quite shook up but we got no sympathy. Things might have been different if there had been a follow-up pool tsunami. We are both experiencing a little post-traumatic stress — mine exacerbated because of the whole shoe, bee, lipstick, phone ordeal— and to speed our recovery we may need to relax at the pool more than usual, maybe with a couple of Margaritas or Cosmopolitans.

It was reassuring to see how our country survived a 5.8 quake. Many other places in the world might not have been as lucky. It’s so good to be an American, with only a tipped over lawn chair or a shaking bottle of water, instead of a collapsed building with hundreds of people in it as a result of an earthquake. No serious injuries were reported, no electric or phone lines were downed, and television went on with its regular programming. Modern technology quickly assured us that we were okay. When the electric goes out and the phone lines are downed due to earthquakes or storms or whatever, we get upset and sometimes panic, but we can still use our cell phones to communicate or call for help.

And if we need to recharge the phone all we have to do is stick it under our butt and sit on it. Who knew?

Creating a Good Portfolio

2011-08-15T20:09:00.000-07:00

Enhance your enjoyment by scrolling all the way down and listening to Get A Job by the Silhouettes and 9 to 5 by Dolly Parton!

Our daughter and her family recently moved, and the new neighbors have a couple of kids the same age as our grand kids, Guilia, 4, and Luca, 3. Guilia was invited over to the neighbor’s house, but she quickly ran home to ask her mom how much they paid for the cleaning lady. My daughter asked why she needed to know, and Guilia said she told the new neighbors that they really needed a cleaning lady because their house was a mess. She said she’d go ask her mommy how much it cost so they could get someone to clean their house, too.

Kathy was mortified, of course, much as Scott and I were, repeatedly, when we were raising our children. In fact, upon hearing this story as Kathy related it to us, Scott and I shut and locked the doors and windows, closed the drapes, and turned on some very loud music so the neighbors wouldn’t hear our cheerful cries of “Hooray!”, “Way to go Guilia!” and some other things that actually aren’t suitable to print here.

For us it’s exciting, exhilarating, enjoyable, and includes a little bit of the “revenge is sweet” syndrome. And Guilia has given us this gift at such an early age! She’s quite precocious so imagine the joy Scott and I will have for years to come. I know all you grandparents understand what I mean by this.

Our daughter was known as Chatty Kathy. In fact, a neighbor once told me how much everyone missed her when she went to college because she would go up the street visiting with all the neighbors on the block, and visiting everyone again as she came back down the street sharing all the news she’d learned on her way up the street. She was the Town Crier. Scott and I hid out as much as possible, sometimes looking at our children with that universal parental look that all parents adapt at times in public places — “Whose children are these and why can’t their parents do something about their behavior?”

Kids do things at a much younger age now than our children did. Every generation says that, and I’m sure it’s true because of the rapid advances in technology and education. We have access to more and more information, and we are all more universally tied together because of the Internet, social media, cell phones, cable, and so on. Our children need to be up to speed on all the new technological offerings and prepare much earlier in life for their future.

Last week I was at our son’s house in Philadelphia watching the 8 year old twins, Aidan and Riley. I told them how proud Scott and I were that they’d passed to third grade, and asked if I could see their report cards. They excitedly asked if I’d like to see their portfolios.

They have portfolios? They are eight years old and they have portfolios.

Of course I wanted to see their portfolios! I was picturing them coming down the steps with a briefcase, IPad, cell phone, and a professional resume along with a cover letter, looking for a job as a Lego builder or bug collector.

Aidan brought me his portfolio which was an extra large, fold-over, colorfully decorated gift bag. Riley’s equally large striped gift bag doesn’t fold over. Each of these bags is full of all their second grade papers, art work, reports from the teachers, tests and quizzes, stories they’d written, and so on. I looked carefully at everything, and of course it was all fabulous. Alas, there were no resumes. I guess they have to add more stuff in each grade, keep their portfolios up to date for the next ten years of school, and then add all the college stuff to complete the whole portfolio thing. They might need some more big gift bags, but when they are completely, formally educated, they may not need a resume. They can show up at job interviews with their colorfully decorated gift bag portfolios.

I’m thinking I should call Kathy to help me find a good cleaning lady to go through all our old statements, photos, shopping lists, greeting cards, reminder notes, old calendars, useless saved newspaper articles, expired coupons, clothing tags, instruction books and warranties for appliances we haven’t owned in 30 years, and everything else we can find, and get it all organized into portfolios for me and Scott. We could probably just use our Giant Eagle or Walmart bags since we would need so many. At least we’d be recycling, even if, because of the old and used bags — plastic, no less— our portfolios didn’t look very professional. With the way our government and Congress and Obama are handling the economy, we need to get our portfolios in order too, so we are totally prepared with our complete life’s portfolio in case we have to get a job working 9 to 5 because our retirement investments took a hit, and now instead of a financial portfolio, we may end up with only a change purse.

Not So Special After All

2011-07-08T07:18:00.000-07:00

Scott and I, out with friends a week or so ago, told them about the Pick-Up Artist, the older gentleman who was trying to pick me up right by the pot of steaming hot potato soup at Eat ‘n Park’s® soup and salad bar. Richard, who himself spends a couple of days every week at this same Eat ‘n Park having breakfast, buying cookies, stopping for coffee, and so on, described the Pick-Up Artist in great detail, right down to his height, weight, the type of shirts he wears, the cuffed khaki slacks, the brown loafers – well, you get it. He then described, again in detail, the women the Pick-Up Artist has succeeded with. He has someone much younger he takes walks with, some older women he sits on benches with, blonds he has dinner with, red-heads he takes to the movies. There is always someone new – some are heavy, some are thin, some are pretty, some not so much, some are tall, some are short. He tells them all they are very attractive.

It seems I am not so special after all. The Pick-up Artist picks up lots of women. He is a serial Pick-Up Artist; an 88 year old player.

So now that I know I’m not so special I think I need to get my groove going again, lift my spirits and freshen up my look.

So I ran right over to the Estee Lauder ™ make-up counter. Simone always looks out for me to make sure I have everything from Estee Lauder that will improve my look and Estee Lauder’s bottom line. I bought some eye cream that is anti-line and anti-wrinkle, restoring serum that will correct lines and wrinkles, and plain old moisturizer that is somehow advanced so that’s a bonus. I had to buy one set of the stuff for day and one set of the stuff for night. I guess my skin does different things in the day than it does at night. I can rest easy because I know that Simone is helping me stave off the need for a face lift.

I can tell you with certainty that I will never have Botox® injections or a face lift. I know some women who have had them and I can see that at some point their faces stop moving and the look of wide-eyed surprise never goes away. If you are old enough to have Botox or a face lift my guess is that life has already dealt you plenty of surprises. Just getting up each day might be a surprise; you probably don’t need a face lift to help you look surprised. These women always seem to say they’ve just had a good rest lately and changed their hair color. It just took place under anesthesia.

My mom had a couple of friends who’d had face lifts. One friend looked great after her first face lift but she had a wrinkled neck and her hands had age spots and that gave it all away. And of course, all her friends were in their 70’s and 80’s just like she was, so she always seemed to look surprised to discover that she had these old friends.

Then there was Dolores.

Mom met Dolores in Pittsburgh when they were in the same golf league. They were great golfing buddies but I never met Dolores or knew her to spend any time with my mom other than on the golf course. After my mom moved to Florida, Dolores would call every so often just to say hello, but sometimes Dolores would tell my mother that she wanted to visit for a few weeks. My mom would always tell Dolores that it wasn’t a good time for company or a visit. This was mostly the truth because my mother had a bad heart and my step-father, Walt, was pretty old. He died when he was 104 so we always said he was pretty old. We said he was pretty old for a long, long time.

Late one night Dolores called and announced that just on a whim she had flown down to Florida to visit my mom, and that besides the slight problem of arriving at the wrong airport in the wrong city (OOPS!), one that was an eight hour drive from my mother and Walt’s house, she would take the bus and would be arriving the next day for a visit. My mother cried and said again that it wasn’t a good time for a visit, she’d recently been having treatments for cancer, which was true, and wasn’t ready for any visitors. But Dolores was adamant. Mom couldn’t convince her not to come and she was not going to be mean. She’d suck it up, make the best of it, and hope it was a very short visit.

Dolores arrived the next morning with a face that was black and blue, sporting very big sunglasses and wearing a turban over her hair. Mom, trying to be polite and compassionate, screamed loudly enough for all the neighbors to hear, “What the hell happened to you? Were you in a wreck?” Dolores said there was no accident; she was recovering from a face lift and didn’t want the Pittsburgh folks to see her until she healed. The short visit might be more than a few days. Her dentist had done the face lift.

Dolores had to sleep in the reclining chair with her head elevated and the next morning there was some blood running down Dolores’s neck, ears, and forehead. My mom took her to the emergency room and the doctors got the bleeding stopped. That night, while my mom and Walt were asleep, Dolores called a cab and left in the middle of the night to go to the airport and take a plane back to Pittsburgh. My mother told me it was because Dolores’s facelift had fallen off.

So you can understand my reluctance to get a facelift.

As long as I can keep tweezing that one wild hair on my chin before it’s noticed, getting anti-line, anti-wrinkle eye cream, restoring serum that will correct lines and wrinkles, plain old moisturizer that has the bonus feature making it advanced, visit the eye doctor less frequently so my vision remains just a tad blurred, continue to dye my hair, wear sleeved, turtleneck shirts that conceal my flabby arms and wrinkled neck, padded and lifting bras that put my breasts back close to where they used to be, flared skirts that conceal my drooping posterior, gloves to cover my hands, pedicures because I can no longer reach my toes…………….

Maybe I need to see the dentist.

The Pick-up Artist

2011-06-25T13:06:00.000-07:00

(You might enjoy listening to “I’m Just A Lonely Boy” by Paul Anka on the pink player to set the atmosphere for the following story. Scroll to the bottom of the screen and press the arrow.)

The other day I met my friend, Gerry, for lunch at Eat ‘n Park®, a local restaurant chain. I love their soup and salad bar and as I was waiting my turn to ladle some soup into a bowl, an older gentleman began to look me over. This guy was lingering by the hot soup and he continued smiling at me and giving me the eye. He inched his way nearer to me as I reached for the soup, and as he got closer he said, “You are a very attractive woman.” Of course, I was flattered and a little startled but I said thank you and continued to ladle the soup.

Then it hit me that this old man had tried to pick me up! Since I was standing right in front of the pots of hot soup, it must have been an attempted Hot Pot of Potato Soup Pick-up.

Lots of people go to bars, say a place like Joe’s Bar and Grill, order a beer or a gin and tonic, and try to pick up a date. Who knew that soup and salad bars have become the new pick-up hot spots? It had not dawned on me that Eat ‘n Park, home of the Smiley Cookie®, was a place where men of a certain age might lurk around the soup and salad bar hoping to get lucky. In fact, I wonder if cruising for pick-ups begins with the breakfast bar. Maybe by the pancake section there are a lot of pick-up prospects before 10:00 AM. Could it be that instead of buying someone a drink the new thing is to order them a Smiley Cookie?

Gerry and I had quite a good laugh over this and I looked around the restaurant hoping to point the man out to her but I couldn’t find him. I thought maybe he’d left the restaurant when all of a sudden he was standing at our table looking right at me. Where did he come from? This guy was persistent, I’ll give him that. “What are you girls doing today?” he asked. I told him we were on a lunch break and leaving soon since I was meeting my husband who was playing golf. I figured I needed to get this guy to understand our time was short and I was married. He replied by saying, “I’m 88 years old and can still walk on my own.” He was obviously quite proud of both his advanced age and his walking ability, which I complimented him on, and with that he walked away having failed at the pick-up attempt. He didn’t even offer to buy us a Smiley Cookie. He was still in Eat ‘n Park when Gerry and I left. I suppose he was hoping for another pick-up opportunity and was quickly back to cruising the soup and salad bar.

This morning as Scott and I were reading the newspapers I saw an ad for Eat ‘n Park announcing that they are sponsoring Family Week at the Pittsburgh Zoo and PPG Aquarium®. The ad promises a “New Party Every Day Celebrating the Zoo’s Animals!” One day is Kids Kingdom Day, and there is Shark Day, Bear Day, Gorilla Day, PPG Aquarium Day, Polar Bear Day, Meet Your New Best Friend at the Zoo Day, and Monkey Around Day. Yes, you read that right, Eat ‘n Park is sponsoring Monkey Around Day. Maybe that’s where you can bring the person you’ve picked up at the soup ‘n salad bar.

(You can check all this out at www.pittsburghzoo.org and look for the schedule for these special events below if you don’t believe me.)

Pittsburgh Zoo and PPG Aquarium Special Events for 07/02/2011 – 07/10/2011:

07/02/2011 - Eat'n Park Family Week - Kids Kingdom Day

07/03/2011 - Eat'n Park Family Week - Shark Day

07/04/2011 - Eat'n Park Family Week - Bear Day

07/05/2011 - Eat'n Park Family Week - Monkey Around Day

07/06/2011 - Eat'n Park Family Week - Gorilla Day

07/07/2011 - 07/08/2011 - Eat'n Park Family Week - Meet Your New Best Friend at the Zoo

07/09/2011 - Eat'n Park Family Week - PPG Aquarium Day

07/10/2011 - Eat'n Park Family Week - Polar Bear Day

(You might enjoy listening to “Just One Look” by Linda Ronstadt on the pink player below to set the mood and enhance this part of the story.)

Actually this very same Eat ‘n Park was the scene of an earlier pick-up incident, but at that time I was the pick-up artist. I’d gone there with a couple of friends on a fall evening back in the late 1960”s. At that time, you parked your car and the car hop came to the driver’s side window and took your order, brought it out to you when it was ready, hung the tray of food on the open window, and collected the money. Just like in the movie American Graffiti.

(You can click this link if you want to see a short clip of the film and some car hops.) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6Jo1gH89VM

Eat ‘n Park doesn’t have car hops anymore, now they have Smiley Cookies.

As we waited for our food to arrive a shiny black car pulled up beside us and our driver, Joe, introduced us to a guy named Scott. He was so-o-o-o good looking! It was as if a bolt of lightning hit me and I almost passed out from heart palpitations. So I suggested that Joe fix Scott up with another friend of ours, Karen, for a blind date. The guys arranged to take Karen and me to a basketball game at the high school. Scott sat in the back seat right behind me, with Karen sitting behind Joe as he drove to the game. Scott was kind enough to open the car door for me as we arrived at the high school and he took my hand to help me out of the car. Honestly, I’m not sure after that how it happened, but Karen and Joe made small talk for the rest of the night and Scott and I never quit holding hands. Within a year we were married and next week we’ll celebrate our 44^th anniversary. It was a very successful pick-up unlike the recent attempted Hot Pot of Potato Soup Pick-up.

Maybe we’ll celebrate our upcoming anniversary by returning to this same Eat ‘n Park for some lunch at the salad bar, then take a trip to the Pittsburgh Zoo and PPG Aquarium for a lesson in monkeying around, and top off the night with a Smiley Cookie.

Holy Cow

2011-06-18T12:40:00.000-07:00

I was standing at the top of the steps the other day as Scott came up the staircase. Our television is right at the top of the stairs and I turned away from the TV to give him a kiss and a hug leaving him to face the television. As he returned the kiss and hug he quietly, slowly and softly ran his hand over my butt and said, “Holy Cow.” Holy Cow? I’ll say it one more time, HE SAID HOLY COW as he ran his hand softly and slowly over my butt.

He seemed unaware that anything was seriously amiss. Quietly, slowly and softly I suggested that he may want to rethink his comment to me, his loving wife. “What are you talking about?” he asked as he tried to look innocent, confused, and surprised. He adapted a questioning look as though maybe he had done something that he knew was wrong, didn’t want me to know he knew he’d done something wrong, hoped I hadn’t noticed or heard him say anything wrong, and pretended he didn’t know what it could possibly be. He even tried to appear insulted that I might be offended by anything he might have said. When I told him he should not put his hand on my butt and then say, “Holy Cow,” he looked offended that I would be offended. He claimed it was just a comment in response to what he saw on the TV program that was on at the time, purely coincidental. At the time the news was on television and they weren’t talking about cows, farm animals, farms, farmers, farming, milk, beef, leather, cow bells, or anything else that such a comment would apply to.

I would have been inclined to believe him except that he was wearing his Yankee Doodle Dandy pajamas. No, that is not a joke or a misprint. These pajamas are white pants with a red and blue stripe down the outside of each leg. He usually pairs these pants with a red t-shirt. When he puts them on I never know whether to salute and sing the National Anthem or sing a few verses of I’m a Yankee Doodle Dandy. It’s difficult to take someone seriously who only needs to stick a feather in his cap to complete the look.

(You can go to the music playlist at the bottom of this page and listen to both of these songs to enhance your mental picture of what this might look like.)

I realize that those of you who know me might become alarmed that I would even attempt to break out in song since I’ve never been known as much of a singer. And let’s be honest the National Anthem is a challenging song. Christina Aguilera botched it during the Super Bowl (as did our beloved Steelers), and she is a pretty good singer. But recently I have discovered my voice, just as she apparently has on the TV show, “The Voice.” I’ve even watched the YouTube video lesson on how to become a better singer by voice and singing coach, Naomi TK, at http://www.youtube.com/user/voicercise.

This past year as I’ve sung the hymns in church I’ve noticed the rest of the congregation looking at me, nodding affirmatively and smiling. Because of this lovely and positive reaction I have become more confident and comfortable vocally and I don’t think another singing lesson is really necessary at this point. Now I sing out with joy, gusto, and complete abandon. It’s encouraging to see that my voice is improving and is getting noticed with such favorable expressions of appreciation. I have even begun to contemplate making a YouTube audition video.

However, if there is another “Holy Cow” comment or reference to me, verbally or physically, from my patriotically attired spouse, he will be standing on the front porch in his Yankee Doodle Dandy pajamas ringing a cow bell while I sing to the hills and stick a feather in his cap. Or somewhere else.

Woe is Me

2011-06-14T13:35:00.000-07:00

I’ve taken a break from my blog and it’s been longer than I thought it would be. Thanks to all of you who have been encouraging me to get back to it. The reasons for the break are both complicated and simple. The simple explanation is that I’ve been lazy. Frankly, lazy has a bad connotation but I find it to be a welcome relief from doing what I don’t want to do. I’m all for declaring a holiday called Lazy Day. No mail, no government work (less for them to screw up for one day), no garbage collection, no work of any kind. Scott would get an extra day, too, even though he has that weekly “retired, but day off day.” Frankly, I’m seeing a lot of those “retired, but day off days” from him. I think he’s trying to slip in an extra day or two some weeks. He’s forgotten about his Swiffer housework and hopes I won’t notice. Ha!

The more complicated reason is that I’ve moved into the angry part of grief. From what I’ve read there are at least five stages of grief: denial and isolation, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. These five stages don’t happen to everyone and they don’t necessarily follow the same order. I’ve been through the denial and isolation, don’t plan to bargain with God to give my mom back to me because I know she’s whole now, out of pain and happy. I can accept that she’s dead although sometimes I still pretend she’s alive and well in Florida. I even find myself reaching for the phone to call her with some news. So that leaves the anger part. And frankly, I’m pretty angry at my mom. That has led to a little depression.

Woe is me, I say.

As I think back over my life and the time I was fortunate enough to have a loving mother and father, I’ve had to accept that they were not just my mom and dad, but human beings. It’s taken me three and a half years since my mom’s death to get to this point. I’m a very slow learner. Family and friends that I’ve talked with agree with me that a mom is a mom and a dad is a dad period. They are not people, they are moms and dads. It turns out though that they are also real, living people with the same strengths and weaknesses as every other human being.

Recently I read a description someone was giving about her friend, “Jane.”

Upon meeting “Marilyn” Jane said: “You are very pretty.”

“Marilyn” thanked “Jane” and remarked that people didn’t tell her she was pretty so the compliment was very much appreciated.

“Jane” then told “Marilyn” that others didn’t tell her she was pretty because she was so fat.

This could have been written about my mother! She was the "Jane" person. Mom was very direct, very frank, had a very quick wit, and was often brutally honest without understanding that what she meant as a compliment could quickly be misinterpreted as something hurtful to the point of negating the compliment. My mother would counter that “Marilyn” already knew she was fat but she didn’t know she was pretty. She’d be surprised to find out that “Marilyn” had already forgotten the pretty part and would forever remember the fat part. Family stories like this abound and they are usually told with a great deal of love and laughter in the telling. She was always upset and hurt when she realized that something she said might have been hurtful. It was never her intention. I miss her humor. Her take on what life threw her way and life’s situations was always unique, brilliant, often hilarious.

That was the human part of the person who was my mother. She grew up in a home where everyone was outspoken, opinionated, witty, faithful and religious, loyal and loving. My father, in contrast, grew up in a quiet, private, loyal and loving, faithful and religious family. Note the quiet reference. Life was exciting and often volatile in our house because of their differences.

I miss them both and am angry that they left me to fend for myself to try to discover the human beings that each of them were. I’ve been having a pity party. Now I’ll get back to this blog, leave the anger behind and concentrate on all my blessings.

Stay tuned. But for now let me wallow and be self indulgent for another day.

As I said before, woe is me.

Paul

A couple of weeks ago my cousin Paul passed away. My father had 18 nieces and nephews and since Daddy was the last of 7 children, some of his nieces and nephews were born while he was still living at home. He loved them all and each of them is very loved and special, yet I think everyone in our family would tell you that Paul was exceptional. His father passed away when he was just eight months old and everyone had a part in looking after him and his 3 sisters. This family of grandparents, aunts, uncles, sisters, brothers and cousins made certain that each person had a sense of love and family. Paul carried that tradition on to his wife, children and grandchildren and gave all of us the gift of love and family by his example. At our last reunion Paul thanked his wife, Barbara, for his wonderful life. Paul gave so many of us an example of what a family truly was and how wonderful life could be. He was greatly loved and will be greatly missed.

Mom, Madonna, and the Lottery

2010-12-10T17:51:00.000-08:00

One day, about three months after his death, my father came to me in a dream. In the dream I went out onto the side porch of my mom and dad’s house, the home I grew up in, and somehow our telephone appeared on the porch ledge and began to ring. I saw my father sitting on the side porch of a neighbor’s house two doors up from where we lived and he was calling me on the phone. It was strange because I could see him; we were watching each other, but in reality the distance was so close a phone wouldn’t have even been considered. He told me that he’d figured out what had happened to him, knew where he was, didn’t want me to worry anymore, and that he’d be okay now. He wanted me to take care of my children, Scott, and my mom, and if I needed him I could call him at 1-800-234-5888. “Call me anytime,” he said. After that dream I slowly began accept his death.

I told my mom about this dream and she was certain that he’d called me with a message that had a hidden meaning on a way to get some lucky money. She said my dad wouldn’t just call me to reassure me that he was okay, he’d want me to feel really good about the call so the phone number he gave me was surely a way for him to pass on winning numbers I should play on the lottery. She said I should play the numbers for three days and be sure to play them just as he gave them to me. I played the numbers. I didn’t win anything. He’d just called to tell me it was time to move on.

When my mother died I knew my grief would be eased some if only she’d come to me in a dream and let me know that she was okay, that her journey was complete, and that she was at peace. I thought she’d call me on the phone just as my father had. A phone call would be nice, I thought. It took three months, just as the dream of my dad had, and finally my mother came to me in a dream and eerily it was on the anniversary date of my father’s death.

In the dream I was doing some crafts with foam stickers on the grounds of a castle at a resort in what was probably Bali, and Bali was now located near the home where I grew up. You know how dreams are always so sensible when you are dreaming but not so much when you are awake. Where I grew up was not remotely like Bali, there were no castles in our neighborhood, and no one I knew dressed like the genies and belly dancers that roamed around in my dream helping with the foam crafts. Anyway, I left the Bali resort to walk home. I could see my childhood home right on the road down below where I was walking when my mother suddenly appeared and told me to come back to the castle at the resort because we were going to the Madonna concert that was about to start.

Mom wasn’t a Madonna fan. She had read enough about her to know that she didn’t like her and that Madonna was too obscene, too sexual, too everything. Songs called “Like a Virgin”, "Papa Don't Preach", and "Like a Prayer", along with her musical productions with crosses and pointed bras were anti- religious, and her off-stage behavior was offensive. Mom faithfully read only one book, the Bible, and one magazine, The National Enquirer, which gave her all the scoop on Madonna. She said if it was printed in The National Enquirer it had to be true or they wouldn’t be allowed to print it. The fact that Madonna was crazy wealthy because of this appalling behavior was a thorn in Mom’s side. My mother was like a Mean Girl going after the Material Girl.

She knew the world would be a better place if her deceased husband, parents, siblings and other deceased relatives would just put in a good word for her with God so she could hit the lottery and become crazy rich like Madonna. She figured they were right up there in Heaven and had God’s ear so it wouldn’t hurt for them to ask. She felt certain she’d do better with a big bunch of money and be way more responsible than Madonna. She told all the deceased relatives to assure God that she promised to do many good things and would be much more positive and moral as a role model than Madonna.

So, of course it seemed obvious to both Scott and me that my mother was visiting me in a dream with Madonna in it to pass on some very important information, and we knew my dad was supporting her because of the date of the dream. My mother’s dream of hitting the lottery and becoming crazy rich like Madonna would be fulfilled through me!

Scott immediately went to the gas station and bought a $20 lottery scratch off ticket. The ticket was a $40 winner, so taking into account the $20 we spent to get the ticket, we were up by $20. Mom’s visit in my dream surely meant something bigger than the $20 winning we had just experienced so we spent the rest of the day going to lots of different places buying Powerball, Cash 5, a bunch of scratch off tickets, and every other kind of lottery ticket available. The next morning we got our coffee ready, sat down and opened the newspaper expecting to see our lottery numbers proclaiming that we were as rich as Madonna. We were so excited!

We did not have even one number. Zip. Zero. Nada. About $60 poorer is all we got. My mom was really just paying me a visit, reminding me to honor my father on the anniversary of his death, letting me know she was okay, and telling me not to be so stupid with $60 ever again.

My mom died three years ago this past November 18. I miss her and I miss my dad. Maybe they are visiting a castle in Bali and planning to go to a Madonna concert. I think they are too busy and too happy to come to me in my dreams now and at last it’s becoming okay.

I’m Becoming a Symphony Conductor Like Marvin Hamlisch

2010-11-16T18:43:00.000-08:00

Last month Scott and I went to Pittsburgh’s Heinz Hall to see “The Fabulous 50’s With Marvin Hamlisch and Sha Na Na.” The orchestra played and Sha Na Na sang hit songs like “Blue Moon”, “Whole Lotta Shakin”, “At the Hop”, “In The Still Of The Night”, and more. The performance was followed by a sock hop so the night was an on-going party. It was just what we were promised – fabulous!

Attending this symphony was something new for me and Scott so I thought it would be important for us to understand the difference between the regular symphony orchestra and the Pops Orchestra. A Pops Orchestra plays popular music and show tunes in addition to well known classical works. The Pops is usually less "highbrow" than the other symphony orchestras, but they have the same instruments and about the same number of musicians: 80-100 people playing string, brass, woodwind, and percussion sections. We sat and raptly watched and enjoyed the music, the conductor, the musicians, and of course, Sha Na Na singing and entertaining.

I was mesmerized! I decided right then and there that I am going to become a symphony conductor.

Mr. Hamlisch is the principal POPS conductor for the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and he has a great stage presence, is pretty darn funny and very personable. He has quite an impressive music background with a lot of success and accomplishments to his credit, having won every major award that exists for his music: three Oscars, four Grammys, four Emmys, a Tony and three Golden Globe awards. He even received the Pulitzer Prize for “A Chorus Line”. Since he’s done well, and seems to know what he’s doing, I watched him very closely to begin my symphony conductor training.

The music conductor’s job is to indicate the beat of the music with the baton going down, up, left, right, and so on making the beat as clear as possible. As it turns out, the conductor does not play an instrument at all. They make decisions such as whether the music needs to be slow, fast, soft, loud, smooth, aggressive, and so on. The conductor communicates these decisions during the performance using the baton, different gestures and facial expressions.

All the musicians sat down and picked up their instruments. Mr. Hamlisch walked out and took his place on the conductor’s stand and lifted his baton up. As his baton came down I noticed that the musicians were no longer watching Mr. Hamlisch. They seemed to know what they were doing without any help from Marvin. All the musicians don’t play their instrument all the time. In between their instrument playing they were reading their music, watching each other, looking at the audience or each other, tapping their toes, adjusting their music stands, looking over their outfits and shoes, etc. Meanwhile, Marvin kept moving his baton around directing those musicians who were playing an instrument, and waving his free hand around at those musicians who weren’t playing their instrument at the time and trying to get their attention, I suppose.

Since I can’t play any instrument, but do know how to gesture and make faces, I feel confident that I have a pretty good start on becoming a symphony conductor. I figure I really only have three major challenges to my quest: 1) I do not have a conductor’s baton, 2) I don’t have a tuxedo, and 3) I can’t read music. Reading the music could be a challenge that I might not be able to overcome easily even though music is in my background.

My dad, Jim, loved all kinds of music. In fact, he even painted the basement of our house with red walls, gold and silver musical notes, staffs, clefs, bars, and so on. He always had the radio or record player on and was always singing. He had a wonderful voice and my mother told me that when they would go out for an evening, or were with a large group of people, he was often asked to sing solos.

Norma Jones lived next door to us and she taught piano lessons and played all the music for my mom’s dance school recitals. My parents thought some piano lessons would be a great addition to my cultural education and I faithfully went each Saturday to my piano lesson right after dancing school. I learned that middle C on the piano keyboard is found by sitting on the piano bench exactly at the middle of the keyboard and lining one’s belly button up with the central most key.

Practice makes perfect and I wanted to be a successful piano student so my parents would feel good about their effort to raise my musical appreciation and abilities and become a skilled and sophisticated pianist. So after each lesson I would come home and begin to practice what I had learned. I sat down on the piano bench, found middle C and positioned myself, closed my practice sheet music booklet, chose a piano roll, put it in place, and began to pump the pedals on our player piano with my feet. Soon, my parents realized that I was not actually playing the piano as well as it seemed and Norma Jones’s piano student roster was down by one.

Every Saturday for several years, my dad and I would go to a store in the Brushton neighborhood and pick out some piano rolls. It was always exciting to find some treasured song that my dad loved and when we got home he’d spend a few hours playing the new finds and singing along. We frequently had family and friends at our house and time was always spent around the piano with everyone taking a turn pumping the pedals and singing. It was a very musical house with the player piano, my singing dad, and my dancing mother.

In March, the Pittsburgh Pops will perform “Marvin Does Marvin” with some of Mr. Hamlisch’s best original music. Then in June Michael Feinstein will be both the pianist and vocalist while Marvin conducts the Pops Symphony for “The Sinatra Project”. I’m hoping to be ready to step in for these performances and help with the conducting part. I’ll be Marvin’s intern, if you will. I still won’t be able to play an instrument or read music, but I’ll get a baton at the music store and I’ll have enough time to practice my gestures and facial expressions.

So actually it seems all I really need is a tuxedo.

Mom Gets A Little Too Handy With The Scissors

2010-11-05T18:33:00.000-07:00

I know I’ve been negligent with my blog. With the beginning of Autumn I’ve spent some time watching the leaves turn gold and red and orange. I’ve fallen into the trap of trying to finish up all the things I meant to do this summer. We went to Philadelphia for Alex and Ryan’s 8th birthday, reunionized with family, went on some day trips, and have tried to cram in all the things we wanted to do in the Spring but were too busy to do until now.

Now it’s already November. How can that be? It seems to be here much too quickly this year. And the clocks change this weekend so soon it’s going to be dark almost before dinner. We spent 20 minutes on Halloween, haven’t even spoken of Thanksgiving yet (couldn’t we at least give it a weekend?) but already the Christmas decorations are out all over the malls and in the newspaper ads.

My mother was quickly becoming gravely ill by the Fall of 2007, right around the time of her 86th birthday on October 26. She struggled more and more to breathe, her chest was beginning to rattle, and her anxiety and confusion became much worse. I was becoming just as anxious and very depressed. I needed to move my brain away from the obvious fact that my mother was dying. I couldn’t help her, or function in life or at work or with Scott or my family if I had to face the truth of what was taking place with her. Fortunately, there was some humor in the tragedy. I just didn’t always see it at the time.

She called me one day at my work and told me she had a very, very bad disease that she feared was killing her. It was the kind of disease she must have gotten from a man and she couldn’t figure out how she got it because there was nothing going on in her life with her boyfriend What’s His Name, and nothing had been going on for a long time before that even though she had been married for a long time, over 30 years in fact, to Walt who had died a couple of years before at the ripe old age of 104. I took a wild guess, based on some of what she was telling me, and asked if she thought she had AIDS. She began to cry and said yes, that’s what she must have but she couldn’t quite figure out how she got it and why she suddenly had it. It just didn’t make sense to her. So I explained to her that she didn’t have AIDS but she did have heart disease and significant lung problems. She was very relieved and thought that probably made more sense.

Then she mentioned that just in case she did have AIDS, she had cut off that plastic thing that was growing out of her nose. It was part of the disease she told me, but now it was gone. My reaction was probably a little louder than it should have been.  Maybe I even screamed. “YOU DID WHAT??? YOU CUT OFF YOUR OXYGEN TUBE?? WITH SCISSORS???” She wanted to know what I was so upset about and what oxygen had to do with anything.

I was not able to react as calmly as I could have or should have. Yes, in fact, my mother had cut off her oxygen tubing and was now walking around with the oxygen tube coming out of her nose, still attached behind her ears, but stopping at her chin. The oxygen unit was now blowing oxygen directly into the rest of the tube which was lying on the floor oxygenizing the carpets. Nothing was feeding her the oxygen she needed to breathe and keep her body and mind operating. Fortunately, she had extra tubing and soon the oxygen was again flowing into her, off the carpet, and the AIDS problem went away. She no longer had scissors, either. I admit I should have thought of that a little sooner.

We had planned a big celebration for her birthday. The Robert Morris University Concert Choir was coming over to the Willows and putting on a concert for all the residents. They’d sing Happy Birthday to her and we’d have cake and ice cream in the dining room for everyone and decorate with lots of balloons and flowers. We wanted it to be a wonderful, special, happy day for her.

After all the plans for her birthday were set she came down with pneumonia and was admitted to the hospital for a few days. While she was there she had to be restrained because she was getting out of bed, yanking off her oxygen, and wandering into other patient rooms looking for company. It’s not easy to see your mom tied to the bed and it was hard for her to understand why it needed to be done. She’d told the nurses her only problem was that she got constipated often and that’s what put her in the hospital ― constipation. The reality was that chronic pneumonia had been added to the list of problems and challenges she faced on a daily basis.

She was discharged from the hospital just in time to arrive back at the Willows in time to hear the RMU Concert Choir sing great tunes for all the residents and everyone sang Happy Birthday to her. It was very touching because she had forgotten it was her birthday.

This year, on October 26, my mother would have been 89 years old. Here is the birthday poem our family always says on birthdays:

   Many happy returns of the day
   Many seasons of joy be given
   May the Lord in His mercy
   Prepare you on Earth
   For a beautiful birthday in Heaven.

Happy Birthday, Mom. I love you and I miss you.

My Bru-Ha-Ha With the Doughboy

2010-09-11T20:14:00.000-07:00

We love those Pillsbury® crescent rolls that come in a cardboard tube with metal caps on the ends. That little Pillsbury® Doughboy looks so cute in his white baking hat and jacket with his little fingerless except for a thumb hand. He seems so darn happy and friendly. You just pull the paper strip by the silver foil tab at the triangle arrow along the seam of the roll, press a spoon along the seam, the cardboard pops open and you’re ready to roll up the dough according to the directions and bake the rolls.

I began by pre-heating the oven, getting out the cookie sheet, retrieving the tube of crescent rolls from the refrigerator, and reading all the instructions again to make sure I knew what I was doing. Baking these rolls is usually Scott's job. This is where the trouble began; I needed to locate the magnifying glass so I could find and read the part that instructed me to remove the wrapper “here.” That part of the label, which seems to be very important so I’d know how to open the tube and get the rolls, is typeset pretty small, miniscule, in fact. Then I had to find the little tiny triangle showing where “here” is. Except for one teeny, tiny little piece none of the label came off so I tried to use a knife to loosen the wrapping hoping I could find the seam and press on it to pop open the tube, wrapper and all. I’ve seen Scott do this and he seemed to manage this method somewhat successfully as long as he was able to use all known swear words and gesture wildly with one of his fingers.

I had a little success because some more of the label came off. I’d pretty much destroyed the part of the wrapper that had the directions, including how long to bake the rolls, and my work with the knife had poked a couple of small holes in the cardboard tube. Very, very slowly some of the dough began to seep out of the tiny little holes. It was looking like we would have to settle for extremely small dinner rolls, not the size or shape of crescents, but more like peas. And at the rate they were seeping out of the tube we wouldn’t be able to have a roll with dinner for hours. I’d probably need to serve them as a tiny side dish in a tiny tea cup.

By now I’d worked myself into a frenzy, had begun sweating profusely, my make-up was running, and my hair was standing on end, so I decided on a new plan; I started to slam the cardboard tube on the kitchen counter repeatedly as hard as I could. I was able to really bang the tube hard because I’ve recently resumed lifting a two pound barbell and know my strength is improving by leaps and bounds. The wrapper still didn’t pop open at the seam. Instead the metal end caps flew off, some of the dough flew out of the can and stuck to the wall, more little pea sized pieces of dough escaped from the holes, and I had to try to shake the remaining dough out of the cardboard tube, which still hadn’t split open. I could see Doughboy not only laughing at me, but gesturing at me with that one fat, little white thumb he has. I don’t think he was gesturing a thumbs up, either.

I knew in an ideal world I’d have one sheet of dough, perforated so I could make 8 triangles and roll those 8 pieces loosely into perfect crescent shapes. Instead, I had about 18 pea sized dough balls, about 5 discs shaped like vanilla wafers, and a few mounds of semi-perforated dough that I shaped into golf ball sized rolls and a couple of free-form artistic creations. I swear Doughboy was chuckling his baker’s hat head off and muttering unfortunate swear words he’d learned from Scott under his breath.

With nothing to lose at this point, I arranged the dough as best as I could on the cookie sheet, took another glance at Doughboy, pressed the dough down onto the baking sheet firmly with the middle finger of my right hand, smirked at Doughboy, and shoved the rolls into the oven. Baking the varied sizes was not entirely successful, but Scott and I each were able to have one total dinner roll made up of several small ones of questionable doneness and shape.

Doughboy was no longer laughing his baker’s hat head off and his swearing and gesturing lost some of its gusto. He was still waving at me with that fat, little white thumb, though.

My Obsession

2010-08-21T08:25:00.000-07:00

It’s fascinating to me how we all obsess about the craziest things; the little things you just can’t get out of your mind, but know are absolutely ridiculous. Mind obsession happens to everyone, I guess, and right now I’m in one of those obsessing states.

A local restaurant, let’s call it Harold’s Inn because that’s it’s name, not only has great food, but in the summer they open the patio for dinner, drinks, and some fun things to do like a game of trivia or a little music. My friends and I have been going there on Tuesday evenings for Bar Bingo, a fun and relaxing way for us to spend a little time together on a summer night. We sit on the patio, have a couple of drinks and the wait staff passes out Bingo daubers and Bingo sheets. We play about 10 games and the prizes are things like a bucket of chicken, a grass skirt and pineapple bra, t-shirts, a free desert. I once won a free Chicken Wrap, my first and only Bingo win.

I’m not a Bingo person and I suspect the people playing Bar Bingo aren’t the same people who go to the weekly Bingo games around town hoping to win the big money jackpot. In fact, I had only been to one Bingo before, an all night affair, and I was a Bingo dud. That’s because me and my friend Ronnie didn’t pay attention to our Bingo cards, chatted and visited with each other and everyone else, ate a whole bunch of greasy bar food, and got really punchy as the whole all night thing went on and on and we got more and more tired. Ronnie’s mom was with us and she was annoyed at our lack of reverence for the game so she ended up watching all of our Bingo cards, along with all of her own 30 or 40 cards, and never forgave us for our lack of proper Bingo conduct. She goes to Bingo halls 5 or 6 nights a week and is as close to a professional Bingo lady as you can get.

Last Tuesday at Bar Bingo we were having a great time, not winning but having fun. The second drink usually increases the fun, I’ve found. The Bingo caller was another friend of ours, sort of our own “Celebrity Bingo Caller” for the evening. The whole Bar Bingo thing only lasts about an hour and our table wasn’t winning but we were happily entertained by Celebrity Bingo Caller Kate who was already celebrating her upcoming birthday and was in high spirits.

The games moved along quickly and the prizes were doled out to the winners. Suddenly, I heard Celebrity Bingo Caller Kate announce that the prize won was a bucket of wingettes. Now, you may think this is a typo, but it isn’t - the prize was a bucket of wingettes.

When the suffix “ette” is added to the end of a word, it usually implies that something is petite; think of a barrette to hold a little bit of hair in place, a little car called a Corvette, a kitchenette, a statuette, a vignette, etc. So what is a wingette? The wings of a hummingbird? A canary? A sparrow? And what would you serve with wingettes? It would have to be something small too, maybe 3 peas or 5 corn kernels, possibly a tiny side of 10 grains of rice? And it would all need to be on a little thing like a dishette, I guess.

I’m not a fan of chicken wings because to me it seems there is very little chicken meat on a little chicken wing and I don’t do well with bones in my food, so I could barely contain my amazement at the thought of what a wingette could be and how much meat would be on one. And the Harold’s Inn menu advertises Jumbo Wingettes! How can something that is an “ette” also be jumbo, I wonder.

I also obsessively fear that the wingettes were the wings of my dearly departed, recently hosed to death friend, Robbee Zee Robin. Have I inadvertently created a banquette by my poor actionette with the hose faucette?

I want to get this obsession obliterated from my mind quickly, so I may have to order some Jumbo Wingettes and find out for myself what they are. I know with certainty, though, that if Harold’s Inn cooks them and serves them, they are probably pretty good for folks who like picking their food off of poor little bird bones.

www.haroldsinnrestaurant.com/

Me and Heidi Klum

2010-08-15T20:00:00.000-07:00

I’ve had some recent dental problems and needed to see a regular dentist, an endodontist, and an oral surgeon. For several reasons it became obvious to me and Scott that I needed a new regular dentist. I’d suspected for some time that a change might be in the cards, or in the teeth, if you will, so I had the new dentist already picked out.

I arrived at the new dentist’s office with all my paperwork in order. The girls in the office were impressed with how organized I was because I gave them a typed list of all my medicines, vitamins, surgeries, insurance information, address, phone numbers, emergency contact information, and a history of my recent dental problems. I still had to copy all that information to their official forms because doctors and dentists like to read messy handwriting instead of typed stuff, but then I was ready to see the new dentist. First they told me they’d want to take a picture of me to keep in my dental file. I imagine this is in case someone else wants to go to the dentist for a new dental drilling and amalgam filling in my place. Anyway, I agreed that they could take a Polaroid picture. I smiled, the girl snapped the button, and out popped the picture. The girl showed it to me, asked if it was ok or would I want her to take another shot. I looked at it very calmly, quickly realized that her camera might be defective, but didn’t want to dampen her enthusiasm with the camera or her photography skills.

I expected to see a photo depicting my uncanny resemblance to Heidi Klum but the photo she showed me was one that depicted my uncanny resemblance to my mother. Now don’t get me wrong, my mother was quite beautiful, but I had so hoped for a photo of me looking like Heidi. Okay, an older by a whole bunch Heidi, but still somewhat resembling Heidi. The only likeness between me and Heidi in this photo was that we both had eyes, a nose, a mouth, a chin, and blond hair. Maybe my features were in slightly different places, a little bit lower due to some sagging and a few wrinkles, but the photograph totally failed to pick up on the similarities between us.

Following my appointment I knew what I had to do; I needed to quickly get over to Macy’s Estee Lauder cosmetics counter and see Simone. She has been helping me maintain the Heidi Klum look for a couple of years now. I knew she’d be sympathetic to my situation and would help me find a way to correct it. She sat me on the make-up stool, studied my facial state of affairs and advised me to get some blue eye-shadow and a new foundation. She also told me that a new upgraded wrinkle cream might make a big difference, but she said I should wait until next week to buy the cream because she doesn’t want me to miss the upcoming “free gift with purchase” promotion. The free gift with purchase promotion thing works like this: I pre-order what I want, meet a certain monetary minimum, qualify for the free gift with purchase, pay for it, and go home without any of it. My upgraded wrinkle cream and the free gift with purchase stuff remains in a bag behind the Estee Lauder counter with my name on it. In a couple of weeks when the actual promotion begins, but the pre-order time is over, I can go pick up the new upgraded wrinkle cream I already paid for along with the free gift with purchase stuff. Usually by then Simone has had some time to ponder my particular case and can make several more suggestions for products I might find helpful.

Even I know the “free gift with purchase” is not really free because the whole phrase ends with the word “purchase.” I think of it more as a prize for spending lots of money on stuff I may or may not need only because I want the free gift with purchase. I always get the free stuff because they see me coming and want to reward me with the prize for being the easiest to be fooled make-up customer. I try only to buy make-up when there is a free gift with purchase prize attached and then I will buy something whether I really need it or not just so I can get the free stuff.

Recently I got a big bunch of stuff because the make-up I purchased had a free gift with purchase so I got that loot, and then as I wandered about the store I noticed a big sign informing the customers that if they spent a total of $50 on make-up from any of several different make-up vendors Macy’s would give them an additional free gift worth $75 of all kinds of stuff from several make-up companies. So I went around to all the make-up counters and bought some more stuff to bring up my total receipts to the required $50 and asked for my $75 free gift. I’d already forgotten about the $50 I spent because I had so much free stuff.

The $75 box was chock full of goodies that promised to get me all fixed up. There was eye cream, wrinkle filler, perfume samples, moisturizer and some other stuff to help me get to work reclaiming my Heidi Klum resemblance. I began that very night using the free night repair and lifting cream. I’ve used it faithfully for two weeks and asked Scott how he thought it was working. He said I looked un-repaired and would most likely need to continue the treatment for an extended period of time. I told him the night repair and lifting stuff cost about $80 and I was out of the free sample. He took a second look and said he thought I might look a bit more repaired and lifted than he had noticed at first glance.

Along with the new blue eye-shadow and foundation I already have, and the upgraded wrinkle cream and free gift with purchase stuff Simone is holding for me behind the Estee Lauder make-up counter, I should be on my way to looking like Heidi Klum soon.

And then I’m getting a new photograph in my file at the new dentist’s office.

Noah! Build Mom An Ark

2010-08-10T07:26:00.000-07:00

My mother was temporarily in a new room at the Willows, a dry room on the first floor. That’s because her apartment was flooded when the faucet in her kitchen galley was turned on but not turned off.

Water must have been running for a long time because it spilled out and over the sink, made everything on the floor so wet they had to move her and all her stuff (oxygen, shiny red scooter, blankets, etc.) to another room for that night and the next day so they could extract water, run dryers on the carpets, and check everything out for safety. Even the room on the floor below her apartment was dripping wet. The staff told us she seemed unaware and very surprised that the water was running and didn’t even notice that everything was wet. We wondered if she’d had another of those minor transient ischemic attack (TIA) things.

So when Scott and I went over to make sure she was okay we found her thrilled with her new room. “Do you know why they moved you to this room?” we asked. There was “some sort of a problem” with her apartment, she said, but she wasn’t sure what it was. “Isn’t this room nice, really, really nice? They brought me some new clothes, too!” They were hers, of course, she just didn’t recognize them. She slept like a baby and the next day she was in a cheerful mood, oblivious to the ruckus that had occurred the night before.

What’s with my mom and faucets? Scott and I thought this incident was eerily similar to the problem she’d had at her house in Florida when she couldn’t figure out how to turn off the faucet and had to call her neighbor for help. She told me that she was not responsible for the flood. She said that someone she didn’t know, and had never seen before, came into her apartment, turned on the water, and left. According to her this person must have stopped in to get a drink and then forgot to turn off the water. She did not think this person worked or lived there and they did not speak to each other.

Nights had always been difficult for her and when she was alone she’d sometimes become very nervous and upset. It became much worse after my father died, and then again when my step-father, Walt, died. Now she was ill and the night terrors seemed to be returning. The difference this time was that she had an explanation for the incident, farfetched as it seemed.

Her calls began to come every hour or less while I was at work. “This is your mother. It’s very, very, very urgent that you come here right now.” “Why?” I would ask. “Because I’m all alone.” “Because I’m in jail.” “Because I need you.” “Because I need a cup of coffee.” “Because I cannot find my mind.” Sometimes she only wanted to hear me breathe. At times it seemed as though she was almost herself mentally, but never physically. Her body continued its downward spiral.

It had become a very frightening, tense, and dark time for her and I was not able to cope very well. Intellectually I knew she was not herself, physically or mentally, and that she was dying. I couldn’t change anything, couldn’t resolve my fears and overwhelming sadness, couldn’t imagine life without my mother. She’d always been quick witted and very funny, and some of her behavior now was pretty amusing if I searched for the humor, but most of it was just a sad downhill slide into the inevitable. My fear was that she’d become as incapacitated as her sisters had been at the end of their lives; one had very advanced Alzheimer’s disease and the other two had physical illnesses complicated with varying degrees of dementia. Two of her nieces had died of Alzheimers. By this comparison my mom’s mind was still pretty good. Physically she was more and more frail every day. She told me she knew she was dying. She said she was ready. I was not.

You hear how hard it is to take care of someone who is fading away physically and mentally, someone who is very ill and at the end of life. But no one can tell you how to take care of them, yourself, the other people you love, your home, your work. Life for me became one of getting out of bed and going through the motions of the day until I could see my mom and maybe find her miraculously back to the person that I knew as my mother. Her hospice didn’t have a support group, as some do, and we couldn’t find one in our area. I wrote whiny e-mails to our family and friends and journaled my feelings and her days. I barely functioned as my mother began to leave me.

Of course, I couldn’t fix her and the inevitable happened; her diseases took over and her descent accelerated. And as that all happened my heart was slowly breaking.

Family Matters

2010-08-02T10:51:00.000-07:00

Last week I was occupied with housework – both in my house and on my blog. You probably wonder what kind of housekeeping I’d have to do on my blog and frankly, I’m as surprised as you are since I really have no idea what I’m doing in the first place.

This weekend was also the first reunion of my mom’s family in many years. We used to get together every year for Thanksgiving, but as people moved or died the tradition couldn’t be managed easily, so we planned the first ever cousins reunion for this past weekend. Of my mom’s 6 siblings only 2 sisters-in-law and 13 of the 17 first cousins are still living so it was a special day for all of us.

As I was doing the housekeeping things, I thought about what I’d need to take to the reunion and I listened to the news, watched television, read some magazines, and tried to learn a couple of intelligent things to discuss with my relatives. They are all really, really bright and I wanted them to be impressed by the depth of my astute and insightful mind.

As I was pondering how to become amazingly intelligent in an extremely short period of time, I happened to look out the kitchen window and crouching right next to the grill was a stray cat. We’ve had a couple of them around this summer and I usually just open the door, make a noise, and scare them off. This time though, I watched because the crouching thing this cat had going on was so interesting. (Note: I don’t really know a male cat from a female cat just by observation from my window and would not ever get up close enough to a stray – or any other cat – to look and discover the sex, so I’m calling this cat a he because – well, just because.) He lowered his body, stuck his tail straight up with the tip of it sort of hooked, one paw stretched out and raised like a claw in front of the other, looking like he was getting ready to attack something or someone.

A million thoughts went through my mind, all reminders of the sad day I hosed poor Robbie Zee Robin to death. Was the cat after eggs that Robbie might have left in a nest hidden in the underside of the grill? Did Robbie leave family treasures in the wheel well, maybe reminders of his previous nest or clues as to who might have done him in? Were there other members of Robbie’s family lurking in the grill hoping to catch me unaware and repeat a scene from Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds movie and attack me when I went out to the patio?

After about 15 minutes of watching this cat, he made a super quick move, ran under the grill, came out on the opposite side of the grill, assumed attack mode once again, and repeated this over and over until he at last came out with a little chipmunk clenched in his jaw. Of course, the poor chippy was limp, obviously critically ill, and near, or already, dead and probably on his way to dinner as the main course for the cat’s stray cat family.

And this means our grill has become a crime haven, a distressed neighborhood on our patio with an attraction for animal killers even though Robbie Zee Robin’s death was accidental. One more murderous incident and Scott will have step in and clean up Grill Town.

Because of the crime spree in Grill Town, I had no time to develop an impressive intellect as I was preoccupied with the state of the patio neighborhood.

The weather was spectacular, the company wonderful, and it seemed everyone had a great time at the reunion. We had a lot of laughs, a few tears, so many shared memories, and an abundance of fun. They are all still really, really bright and I’m content to appreciate and learn from each of them. They let me be who I am, just as I am.

I picture my mom, dad, grandparents and all their siblings watching us take the time to reaffirm to each other that there really is nothing more important in life than family. Family matters. And I’ve been blessed with a really good one.

Walter

2010-07-19T14:16:00.000-07:00

I was not happy when my mom married Walter. There were lots of reasons for my unhappiness about this marriage, all revolving around me. My mom had only been widowed for 15 months, I was still struggling with grief over my dad’s sudden death, Scott’s father died suddenly 6 months after my father so he was grieving, and we had two young babies that kept us busy. We were not in any mood for more major life changes. In my childish mind, I saw this as an attempt at a “daddy replacement.” Walt was a widower, age 70 to my mom’s 49, making him 21 years older than my mother. I thought he’d be better suited as my grandfather.

Walt had one daughter; 9 years younger than my mother, and Ellen had three children. She was unhappy about this union, too, but living in another state, she could not be as vocal as I was. And I let my mother know at every opportunity that I didn’t want him in our family, living in my father’s house - the house I grew up in, being around my mother, or me or my husband or my kids or any of my relatives. And there were about 1000 more reasons I was not happy about this marriage. But there was really only one – he was not my beloved father.

I begged my mother not to marry Walter. “He’s so old!” I said. I told her he was so ancient that he’d be dead in five years. My mom replied that she needed to come home to someone, cook dinner for someone, argue with someone, be happy with someone, think of and take care of someone other than herself. It was about what she could do for Walt, not what he could do for her, and certainly not what he could do for me. Her life needed to be about being responsible for someone besides herself. If he only lived five years she’d be thinking of someone other than herself and be happy for five years, she said. Many years later, while talking to a minister friend about this dark time, he asked if I ever saw the goodness of my mom’s heart; she needed to give to someone, not get from someone.

I made my mother so nervous about this pending wedding that anytime the subject came up I’d cry and carry on so bad that she’d become upset and we’d have to change the subject to something more neutral. She told me she was getting married and that was it. There was no more discussion until the day of the wedding when she called to see if Scott and I were coming. Since our communication about this subject was like a land mine she’d neglected to tell me when the wedding was and I, of course, thought if I didn’t have a date and time, it would never be able to take place. She said it would be at the church that evening right after her work. So with an hour to get a babysitter, get my husband home from work, be ready, and make the one hour drive in rush hour traffic, we missed the wedding. I discovered that she never forgave me until we talked about it when I brought her to Pittsburgh and 36 years had gone by.

Interestingly, it was my father’s family that first welcomed Walt into our family. My dad’s four sisters and his brother didn’t want my mother to be alone. They adored Walt and every so often, over the next 33 years, my mom and I would ask each other if he knew who these relatives were, his wife’s former husband’s sisters, brother, nieces and nephews. Of course he did and he loved them. He often told me that he knew my father’s family was exceptional and wonderful. My mom’s family accepted Walt, too. I was the hold-out.

It took some time, but this wonderful man just patiently let me work it all out, never forcing himself, always respecting my memories, always so loving with me, my husband, and my children. I slowly began to see that he was giving my mother back her life. And my kids ended up with a loving, attentive, grandfather. It didn’t matter to them that he was not biologically their grandfather. He was the only grandpap they would know and in their hearts he was always magnificent.

Walter Ward was a loving, fascinating, patient, talented man who never tried to be my father. He helped me hold my dad close in my heart and gave our children what our fathers could not. He became the grandfather they deserved. He became my mother’s loving husband, best friend, and our family's salvation. He helped us make us whole again.

On July 18, 2004, Walter Ward died at the age of 104. He far surpassed the 70 years I predicted and remarkably, was healthy until the last two months of his life. I loved him and I miss him.

Robbee Z. Robin - A Tribute

2010-07-06T19:48:00.000-07:00

As you know, much of what is on this blog is from my journals and was written previously and sent via e-mail to my family and friends. This, however, is something I’ve not written about before and it is about a very recent, unfortunate, and tragic incident in my life. I am truly full of remorse.

That said, I expect I’m going to hear from people who are animal activists, members of Audubon societies, PETA, ornithologists, aviaries, animal rescue groups, - whatever.

I have admitted before that I’m timid around animals. I love to watch them from a distance, find many of them very interesting and beautiful, and enjoy immensely going to the zoo; it’s one of my favorite places to visit. I am just not a touchy, feely animal person. I enjoy most animals from afar, though frankly some are just plain creepy like snakes, mice, rats, and the like.

Several years ago, I decided I wanted to enjoy bird life and do a little bird watching from our windows so Scott and I put up bird feeders and a birdbath and we bought some bird identification books. It was great to see all the wonderful, colorful species that came to our yard. We saw owls and woodpeckers, wrens, sparrows, bluebirds, cardinals, robins, and lots and lots of squirrels and bird poop. In fact, we saw more squirrels and bird poop than birds. Our yard became a squirrel haven and birds built nests in our gutters which then clogged up and overflowed. Our windows and siding were covered in bird poop. The birds seemed to enjoy bathing and pooping in the same water. We’d put in clean, fresh water, but the dirtier it got, the more the birds liked it and soon they were practically having bird conventions. Needless to say, we quickly learned that we were not good at bird care, bird feeding, bird watching or bird enjoyment. We shut down the bird resort.

Earlier this Spring I went around the yard doing some general weeding and clean up. A robin showed up and did not fly away while I worked. Instead he scooted in between the bushes, hiding under the leaves, moving right along with me, not flying away, not trying to get rid of me, not protecting any nest that I could see, not making any chirping conversation. Not that I speak bird chirping. I can’t say for sure that this robin was a male. It seems the only way to tell is if the male and female are together and then the male will have slightly darker coloring. Since he spent the day with me I named him Robbee Z. Robin. We seemed to have some sort of connection that only Robbee understood but I could respect that.

Robbee stayed near me as I worked for an hour or so weeding and cleaning up the yard. I’d move to a new spot and he’d follow me, never flying, only doing his bird-walk thing, in and among all the bushes and plants. No conversation, no chirping on his part. Once in a while I’d ask what he was up to, how he was enjoying his day, how his family was, and I’d remind him to keep his distance and not invade my personal space. Once I was finished with the weeding I bid Robbee adieu and went into the house for lunch.

After a little rest I thought I might as well continue with the outside cleanup and tackled the patio. I washed all the furniture and hosed off the all the dirt on the pavers. I took off the grill cover, thoroughly sprayed the outside of the grill surface with cleaning solution, then scrubbed and rinsed it with the hose. Scott would clean all the inside cooking parts later.

As I was putting the cover back on I heard a distinctive scratching, tapping noise. Scratch, scratch, scratch. Tap, tap, tap. I could feel my heart begin to pound and I was certain there was a mouse stuck somewhere in the grill so I adjusted the hose to its strongest stream and began to force the strong stream of water into every nook and cranny, including the underneath parts down by the grill wheels. I was determined to out that mouse!

But what popped out in the flood of water was Robbee Z. Robin who was lying cockeyed and limp on his back, eyes open but unfocused, and in an unfortunate state of apparent death. I had hosed Robbee to death.

I called to my next door neighbor’s grandson who was helping her in her garden and asked him to come and use the shovel to move Robbee over into the woods. My neighbor was all for putting poor Robbee in with her weeds in the big, black garbage bag she was using, but I fought for some dignity for Robbie. I knew if he was in the woods his family would have a chance to find him, nurse him back to health if my assessment of his condition was wrong, or if it was unfortunately correct, they could give him a really nice bird funeral. Or he could be food for the other animals in the woods, not on my patio. Either way his life would not be in vain.

I feel really awful about this tragic incident. I wonder if Robbee was dying anyway and chose to spend his last hours with me as I did mundane yard work, not wanting to be alone at the end.

In memory of Robbie Z. Robin who tragically died by accidental hosing, June 2010.

She Drives Like It’s A Hot Rod Lincoln

2010-06-29T14:36:00.000-07:00

I was called to the office of the Willows. This is a parent conference I guess, just like we had with our children’s teachers. However, this time I’m not the parent. Instead, it’s a conference about my parent. It seems my mother’s shiny red scooter driving has attracted the attention of the powers that be. The director tells me she drives too fast and I need to get a governor put on the scooter to limit her speed. In addition to being a speed demon she has trouble knowing forward from reverse and she can’t navigate turns very well. I say I’ll do what I can and leave the parent conference relieved that my mother has not been expelled from assisted living.

Every day when I arrive, the women that are friends of my mom’s are sitting in a row along the banister at the top of the stairs talking with each other and watching for people coming out of the elevator. Usually, they give me some sort of a report on where my mom is if she’s not sitting with them. One day they were straining their necks looking for me so they could be there to hear Fannie tell me that my mom had pinned her into the corner of the elevator with her shiny red scooter. That is not the sign of a safe driver, they say, backing Fannie up. My mom got the scooter stopped just before she crushed Fannie, and while she wasn’t hurt, just shook up, she could have been injured or knocked over, and she is still pretty upset with my mom. Fannie’s memory is failing but the pinning episode is one she remembers well. And Fannie may not have been the first person pinned to the corner of the elevator or chased down the hall by my mom on her shiny red scooter.

So I made labels for the “dashboard” of the scooter and explained all the scooter driving rules to my mom. She claimed she is too stupid to learn them and does not want to go slow. She and Vance the Boyfriend like to go fast, race around, and feel the wind in their hair. That’s one thing when you are outside on the sidewalk, I explain, but not acceptable in the hallways of the building. I told her she must follow the rules or they will take away her shiny red scooter. I don’t think it sank in. She kept running into the walls again and again, but Fannie at least, was learning to be quicker on her feet. BOOM!! BANG!! OUCH!! OOPS!!

She gets around only on the scooter unless it’s to walk a just few feet at most and then she’ll use the walker. We take a wheelchair when we go out but she can’t keep her breath if she tries to walk too far. Even going across the rooms in her apartment is becoming too taxing for her. Vance the Boyfriend still uses his walker if we go anywhere. Sometimes when I arrive he’ll announce that he and my mom want to go out to dinner and he knows just the place. He likes a wonderful restaurant just up the road a short distance and the food is great, he says. So I load up the car with the walker and the wheelchair and me, my mom and Vance the Boyfriend. We arrive at a smoky filled restaurant with lots of booths and tables and a long, wall length bar. Vance leads us to a booth and my mom hops out of her wheelchair and onto the bench where she can sit an inch or less away from him. Being at dinner in a smoky bar atmosphere is not something my mom would normally consider appealing, but Vance loves it and she loves having him as her boyfriend.

Since Vance the Boyfriend is a conspirator in the speeding situation I wonder if his kids have had a parent conference, too. He hasn’t slowed his driving down any, but he is a better driver I have to admit. He seems to have good control of his bigger shiny red scooter and he does pretty well, it seems, at weaving in and out of elevators, hallways, maneuvering sidewalks, avoiding people, walls, and so on. But still, I don’t want to be the only one called to the office for a parent conference. His kids should also have to face the music. And if he’d slow down so would my mom, I think. Not that I want to be the kind of kid that blames everyone else for the crazy things their parent does.

Well, maybe I do.

Vacation........

2010-06-29T14:15:00.000-07:00

Sorry I've been off-line for a couple of weeks. It's summer and Scott and I took some time to see Dean, Kim, Alex and Ryan and we are doing summer things. Our anniversary is this week, too! 43 years married to a real gem. He's pretty lucky. And, of course I'm kidding! He's the gem.

The Break-In

2010-06-14T19:39:00.000-07:00

We remodeled our home doing the whole inside in just a couple of months. It included walls getting moved, a bathroom moved and enlarged, a new kitchen, a wall closed, a wall opened, plastering, flooring, and so on. As you can probably surmise by now, Scott the Handyman did not do any of the work. He’s darn cute, but clueless on little home repair jobs so this big job was hired out right away. Once the remodeling was pretty much done we got to work putting things away, organizing and cleaning up.

One Saturday I decided to clean up the floor of the garage. We had sort of organized it and swept it but it had a film of drywall dust and who knows what else, so I took the hose to it and swept the water and dirt out. With this task completed, and the garage door kept open to help dry the floor, I double locked the new door between the house and the garage and all the other doors, and took a shower to get ready for a much anticipated baby shower for my cousin Amy. This was going to be a great afternoon with my cousins and me getting together to celebrate and visit. Distance prevents us from doing this as often as we’d like and I was pumped.

After my shower I used some new lotion on my legs and neck and arms. This lotion was a gift and included some shimmer stuff and I thought it might be nice to try on such a beautiful and festive day. I put on my short, light weight summer robe and opened the door to the garage to check on the speed of floor drying. The floor needed another sweep so I pushed the door closed and swept away. It only took a minute or two.

Can you imagine my panic when I tried to get back into the house and discovered the door would not open? I had unlocked one of the locks on the new door but not the other, and I was now standing in a street facing garage in only a short summer robe, a towel wrapped around my wet hair, and some shimmer lotion that I now discovered was also a fragrance - grapefruit fragrance. I was otherwise au natural. My cell phone was in the house along with all my keys. I could hear my neighbors sitting on their porch across the street and panic was beginning to set in. I just knew they were going to start up a conversation with me. I had no way to get into the house until Scott came home from golf in a few hours and I felt certain the neighbors were beginning to notice either that I was only wearing a robe or they were searching for the source of the fruit salad that seemed to be permeating the air.

Somehow I mustered up some rational thinking and remembered that I had opened the windows because it was so nice out. All but one window was too high, but a back one remained a possibility for an entry plan. In fact, Scott had developed this plan a few months earlier when he found himself locked out one day after golf. So I grabbed the rickety old, old step ladder from the garage, tried to assume a normal yet dignified attitude, and traipsed out the front of the garage and around to the back of the house where I planned to climb in the window unnoticed. I prayed no one would notice me, the ladder, my attire, or more accurately my lack of it, or get a whiff of my grapefruit fragrance.

This was a tricky plan because I don’t have real knees (they are both replacements), am unsteady on ladders, and frankly have not ever had any real ladder training. There was not a good level spot to settle the ladder on, but I stuck it in the bushes close to the house as best as I could and hoisted myself up slowly a few times to see if the plan would work.

I now had a jagged bush creeping up under the short robe and the flies, mosquitoes, bees, and varied other bugs had discovered the smell of fruit in the air and a feast at hand. They may have also mistaken the shimmer lotion for fire-flies or some bug-related mating call.

Now I could hear very near-by neighbors in their back yards cutting the grass, visiting, and whatever else people do when I’m trying to be invisible. The kid next door chose this time to let out his dogs. Good grief! This didn’t look good and I was really afraid I’d fall, or worse, be noticed. I knew that when Scott came home he’d be on the patio grilling and would have his dinner over and done with, would be settled into a nap, and he’d never notice me lying unconscious in the bushes. Maybe he’d wonder about the ladder but he might think it was either for the contractors to do something with, or he’d fear it was set up for some little job I had for him, and so he would decide it would be best not to move it or get too close to it. I could be there for days!

In this state of panic I just went for it and grabbed hold of the window frame and hurled myself head first through the window. Visualize it if you can…head first in through a window wearing only a short robe and shimmer lotion.

I made it to the baby shower where we all had a wonderful time. Fortunately, I was with people who are able to overlook my quirks and didn’t even seem to mind the fruit smell. Amy looks wonderful and the baby should arrive with no problems other than a possible craving for grapefruit.

We Have a Situation

2010-06-08T13:35:00.000-07:00

One night my mom and Vance the Boyfriend were riding their twin red scooters down the hall to the elevator to go to dinner when I arrived. They were going much too early so they decided to get their medications at the health center and go back to my mom’s apartment to visit with me for a while. Suddenly, my mom had some very significant chest pains and she was given nitroglycerin tablets so she could get some relief. It was scary and upsetting, but after a little while she was feeling some better and we went back to her apartment so I could help her get comfortable and let hospice know what had happened. By “we” I mean me and my mother. Vance the Boyfriend got in the elevator and went to dinner as soon as the chest pains began. It seemed to me he had his scooter in rabbit gear instead of turtle.

I washed and dressed my mother in her night clothes, ordered a tray for her dinner, and sat with her as she settled down and got sleepy. As she rested she told me that Vance the Boyfriend had asked her if they could have sex. She said she told him “not yet.” She said she feels that since his wife has only been gone for about a year it’s too soon. Maybe when his wife has been dead longer they can talk about it again.

This is not a mother-daughter conversation I ever envisioned. Ever.

There are just a few obstacles that my mother and Vance the Boyfriend have yet to consider: her oxygen tank and the tubes, the effect of any exertion on my mother’s breathing, blood pressure and heart, his catheter, the bad backs, bad legs, the - well, you probably get it. And I’m not sure how Vance the Boyfriend’s kids will feel about their father propositioning my mother or how the people in charge of the Willows would react to this.

During this conversation she also asked me several times what his name is. “Yance? Lance? Dan? Jim? Walt? What’s his name? My boyfriend? Sam?

This is one of those conversations where you look at the speaker with a blank look on your face, do not move even the tiniest muscle unless it with a non-committal, ever so slight nod, and begin to cough so you don’t have to speak. I did all that believe me. And really I could not speak anyway.

By then Vance the Boyfriend was finished with dinner, had heard the news that my mom was okay, and stopped in to see how she was faring. My mother suddenly began to look like Clark Gable had come back to life for a personal visit with only her. Her color and attitude improved and since I was no longer needed, and was still in a state of shock, I left.

Dean, Kim and the five year old twins, Alex and Ryan, came to visit for the weekend and while Dean and Kim went to see my mom and to visit their friends and enjoy some time out, Scott and I took the boys to the zoo. It was a great day, lots of fun, and on the way home we asked the kids what they wanted to be when they grew up. Ryan said he wanted to be a veterinarian, maybe because we’d just been to the zoo. Alex said he was going to be a clown when he grew up. So Scott asked him what a clown does and Alex said that clowns tell jokes. So we asked him to tell us a joke. Our brilliant grandson told us he didn’t have any jokes because he’s not a clown yet. He had a point.

Maybe my mom was just clowning around and telling me a joke. But I don't think so.

Love Is In The Air

2010-05-31T15:56:00.000-07:00

We are all getting to know my mom’s boyfriend, Mr. Vance Wittner, aka Whats Hisname. He’s new to the Willows and he and my mom met within a day or so of his moving in. He had been in the Marine Corps and Iwo Jima. He and Scott, also a Marine and a Vietnam Vet, had plenty to talk about. Interestingly, a man also living at the Willows that Vance had known long ago, and who was from the same neighborhood as Mr. Wittner, also was a Marine who served in Iwo Jimo.

My mother’s outlook is greatly improved. She can’t believe she has a boyfriend, she tells me. It’s exciting to see her have a friend now because she has really only had us since she moved here from Florida. She frequently tells us that everybody living at the Willows has something wrong with them and it’s hard to be friends with people who are “losing it." She does not believe she has anything wrong with her except a slight breathing problem. She’s been very lonely and has trouble understanding why she needs to be here. All in all, since meeting Vance, she’s much more content and finally, FINALLY said to me, “I like it here.”

Vance talks frequently about his wife who died a year ago. He misses her very much and tears up when he talks about her and their life together. My mom talks about Walter, her husband who passed away a couple of years ago. My mom doesn’t call Vance by name but he calls her Fran. It seems like they are just two lonely people striking up a friendship. My mom looks happy and that means everything to us.

These two people on their matching red scooters take rides all around the Willows building and grounds, read the papers together, sit and talk, watch TV and seem happy. My mom is less anxious and I’m not being called as often - now just 3 or 4 times daily, not 8 or 10 like before.

Mr. Wittner has three daughters and a son. His daughters all live nearby and it seems like they all try to stop in for short daily visits and to check on him. He’s temporarily in a shared room with a roommate, a man who is pretty sick, and Vance is waiting for a single room of his own. He and my mom sit on her sofa and watch TV in her apartment. Since moving into the apartment, my mom has never closed the door unless she is not in there. She’s afraid to be alone, I know, and shutting the door makes her very anxious.

I’ve met two of Vance’s daughters. They seem to be very nice and sit and visit with their father and my mother in her apartment or in one of the common rooms. The third daughter walked by Mom’s apartment one day, saw her father sitting on the sofa with my mom, gave us all a disgusted look, made a remark of some sort under her breath, and kept on walking past the door. She didn’t even say hello to her father or sisters. It concerned me, seemed rude and childish, and it occurred to me that she was not willing to share her father with a new friend who was female.

I have a couple of other concerns, too. As my mom, Scott, and me trailed behind Vance on his walker in front of us, my mom, from her red scooter vantage point, said to us, “Look at how his ass sways side to side, just like a Hollywood movie star!”

WHAT???!!!

I Am Joining The Circus

2010-05-24T19:35:00.000-07:00

I have this one hair on my chin – actually, on the side of my chin and every time I tweeze it out, it comes right back. This hair is white and wiry. I find my fingers searching my chin to find it beginning immediately after tweezing it and have become obsessed with it. If you see me with my hand on my chin and my finger running along my jaw line you might be inclined to think I’m in deep concentration about our conversation or have some perplexing thoughts running amuck in my mind because I take on a look of extreme concentration. I’m actually trying to find out if you have noticed this hair and you don’t really know what to say about it. Or, more likely and even worse yet, I’m pretending to look interested in you but am really only trying to figure out a way to get to my tweezers and pluck the darn thing out.

It seems I could get some relief from the worry about this errant hair by just joining the circus and sitting under the Big Top on a stool where everyone could look at me, the One Haired Bearded Lady. I’d be in the section with the other circus freaks like the Mermaid Girl, the Seal Boy, the Contortionist, the Two Headed Man and other quasi famous circus attractions. I’d wear a really cool circus outfit. Sequined, I think. I’d get to travel to places like Coney Island and maybe even Puerto Rico or the Palace of Wonders in Washington, D.C. I wouldn’t have to pretend to be concentrating on all the external influences that occur during my one hair preoccupation. I wouldn’t have to be tweezing my chin or planning the big tweeze anymore. I’d let it grow really, really long. I’d just sit on a stool and play with the hair and show it to all the folks at the circus with great pride.

Scott would also benefit by not having to hear about the recurring hair every few weeks. He says he can’t see it but I know he just doesn’t want to hurt my feelings.

I don’t want my One Haired Bearded Lady stool to be too close to the circus animals though. I’m timid around all animals because I was jumped by three or four hunting dogs in our neighborhood as a little girl. They got out of their pen and were just being friendly but it was still quite distressing. Of course, my only injury was dog saliva all over me from the dog licking they gave me. I had no bites, just dog saliva injuries. Actually, they weren’t technically injuries in the true sense of the word, but it was still a very harrowing event in my life.

My mom was extremely fearful of cats. If a cat was around she would go into a state of complete panic. She told me that as a child a cat fell out of a second story window in the middle of some kind of seizure or fit and landed on her head as she stood on the sidewalk. I spent my entire life worrying about the traumatic effect such an occurrence had on my mother. Can you imagine a seizuring cat flying out of a window and landing on your head? She talked about this terrible incident frequently and it marked her for life. She was terrified of cats.

When my mother arrived here in Pittsburgh near the end of her life we had a chance to talk about a lot of things that we had not really talked about before. Some were too painful, like my dad’s death, some were too long ago and nearly forgotten, some were too distressing like the cat flying out the window and landing on her head. With her now living near us, we spent a lot of time reminiscing and talking about all sorts of things we never had talked in detail about before. She told me about her parents, her siblings, my father, my relatives, her life. It was wonderful because I got a whole new body of knowledge about her and myself and my family. I heard her perspective of life and experiences and was able to appreciate how wonderful she and my dad really were. Some things my mom told me were mixed in with other stories so I was never really certain about the complete accuracy of them. Dementia and aging does that to a person. For example, she might know something about you, something about a TV show, and something about me. The story she told might be a combination of all three incidents rolled into one story about herself, me, my dad, my family, or maybe a friend. But it didn’t matter to me because they were all wonderful and great stories, part of my beloved mom’s memories and history.

In these conversations with her she finally cleared up my questions about the traumatic event of the cat flying out the window story. When I asked whose cat it was that jumped out of the window and where it came from the answer really surprised me. I had assumed the flying cat was a wild cat or a neighbor’s sick cat or maybe even a rabid cat. It turns out that the flying cat was her own beloved pet that she had dressed up in doll clothes on a hot summer day. The cat got angry, maybe had a heat related seizure, hissed and scared her, so she ran down the stairs and out of the house. The cat jumped out the open window and landed on her head, still fighting mad. It was the beginning of her lifelong fear of cats.

In any case, my dog licking attack and her flying out the window seizure cat incident, combined with a neighbor’s nasty biting dog who loved to taste my beautiful little children, has left me somewhat fearful and cautious around animals so I don’t want to have my One Haired Bearded Lady stool too close to elephants or tigers or other circus animals. Lions are proud of their manes, I understand, and I don’t want any hair competition, nor do I want animal hair all over my beautiful circus clothes. And let’s face it some animals aren’t particular about their hygiene or body odor.

I’d like to have my circus stool next to the concession stand and near the souvenirs.

There’s A New Man in Town

2010-05-17T19:05:00.000-07:00

After my mom became sick and we brought her to Pittsburgh, her health problems progressed. Some of them she weathered fairly well, like the kidney/bladder infection and persistent pneumonia, but her heart continued to fail and her breathing became more and more labored. Her lack of oxygen increased her confusion and she couldn’t walk more than a few steps as it taxed her breathing too much. She had resisted using her new red motor scooter and I know it was just pride – that and the fact that she couldn’t figure out how to turn it on and drive it. So my cousin Janet came to visit her and gave her a demonstration, a few good laughs, a lot of hugs and some kisses, and Mom was on her way on her new scooter.

She was calling me very frequently – sometimes hourly – because she was becoming very anxious and just needed to feel connected and reassured. One day, when there were an over abundance of phone calls from her, I suggested she hop on that shiny new red scooter and go downstairs to the main room at the Willows where there were people. She should socialize and make some friends. Maybe she could even go out on the front porch and enjoy the beautiful day.

I made the suggestion at about 3:30 and when I arrived for my daily visit at about 5:00, my mom and Mr. Vance Wittner were sitting on the sofa in the main living room reading the newspaper together. You could not slide a piece of onion skin paper between them.

Mr. Wittner and my mom were the only 2 people at the Willows with motor scooters, and they both had exactly the same one. Mr. Wittner’s was a larger version, but both were the same brand, same style, same red color, same everything. My mom, who only 2 hours earlier had been so concerned about how soon I would be coming over, telling me she was very upset and not well, now seemed totally uninterested in me as she sat so close to Mr. Wittner. Now, there was no sign of the anxiety or distress of earlier in the day. She was very focused on him and even seemed to have a glow about her. I managed to squeeze in a sentence or two and told her that if she felt ok we could go to lunch on Sunday. Instead of responding yea or nay, she turned to Mr. Wittner and asked him if he’d like to go to lunch with her family. He said he’d love it. With his agreement, my mother turned to me and said they’d love to join us for lunch. She said I should gather up Scott and Kathy and her family. We’d need to take two cars since there would be a lot of people and there would be two walkers, my mom’s and Mr. Wittner’s. Mr. Wittner said he loved Applebee’s® so he asked how would that be for the rest of us? I assured them both that we liked Applebee’s® just fine and I’d gather the family.

When it was time for me to leave and for them to go to dinner, Mom turned again to Mr. Wittner and said, “We can’t sit together, we have to sit at our regular tables.” This relationship seems to have developed over the course of an hour or so.

When I arrived the next day the staff at the Willows couldn’t wait to tell me how cute the new couple was as they sat on the sofa or on the front porch holding hands. I went up to her apartment and asked if she’d had a good day and what had she done. Instead of the usual putting her head in her hands and struggling to recall her activities, she told me she was busy all day because she had company. When I asked her who was there, she said she didn’t know who they were, but “it was those girls that come” (hospice) and “that man that you know.” I asked, “What man?” and she said, “My boyfriend! What is his name?”

So then I knew it was official. My mom had a boyfriend – Whats Hisname.

Happy Mother’s Day

2010-05-07T18:18:00.000-07:00

Happy Mother’s Day to all of the Mom’s reading this blog. If you have grown children, remember that we should celebrate each day that our children are healthy, happy and out of the house. If you have small children, love and enjoy them every minute you can because time passes much too quickly. If you have teenagers - well, hang in there.

At our house we began to realize that in what seemed to be the blink of an eye, we went from taking care of our children to taking care of our parents and didn't even have time for a nap between these two occurrences.

My mom spent her last Mother’s Day on a lot of medication to help with pain, breathing and anxiety. She was struggling to walk and very quickly went from a regular walker, to a wheeled walker with a seat, to a manual wheelchair, and then to a small motor scooter. She became too weak to walk more than a few feet and even that required assistance so she wouldn't fall. Most of her time was spent sleeping and her appetite was very poor. She cried much of the time. She’d had a bladder or kidney infection and a bout of pneumonia since she’d arrived from Florida. At times she began to look for and speak to my dad and step-father, her siblings and others. Relatives would visit and she seemed know them while they were with her, but after they left she was not sure who had been there.

One night she told me she wanted me to talk to the nurses and aides and the people from hospice about her medication. She looked at me with half opened eyes and said, “This isn’t living.” She said it had to be the medication that was suddenly making her so unbearably weak. So, as she requested, I asked for her medication to be reviewed and adjusted. I had found that because she’d been diagnosed with dementia, sometimes those involved in her daily care didn’t listen to her, but if I passed concerns on for her attention was given. It was demeaning and unfair in many ways but my mom never complained. Most of the time she didn’t even know to whom to complain. The hospice nurses changed often and she was never sure who was who. She really only knew Chaplain Cindy’s name and role. All the other caretakers were nice people helping her and she liked them all. Slowly, once the medication had been changed, there was a little more life in her eyes and she seemed more engaged in her surroundings. Her breathing and memory were still a problem but she did seem much less tortured.

She and I had talks about all the people who were expecting her in her new life. She told me stories that I’d never heard about her parents and my father and I learned about her childhood. I felt like I was getting to know all of these people better through her. She was anxious to see them again, and most importantly, to be with God. Her faith was very strong. She expected a welcoming party, and I knew she would be greeted with great love and joy and a release from pain. I remind myself of this often to keep myself from wallowing in grief.

On this Mother’s Day I’m thankful for every minute I had with my beautiful mother, Frances, and I’m grateful that I was able to spend so much time with her in the last year of her life. We had time to make sure that each of us knew how blessed we were to have each other in our lives. She knew she was loved and I knew how very loved I was.

I miss my mother, Frances, and this Mother’s Day, like all of you who love and honor your mom’s, I’ll be honoring her.

Happy Mother’s Day.